Taking the Gold

 Distinctive automotive repair and service facilities achieve levels of merit, expertise and success daily because they are committed to best business practices and superior customer satisfaction. Leaders in the collision repair and mechanical services industries are forward-thinking and continually reach beyond industry standards. Their goals of business excellence and outstanding customer service are the same ones that drive the automotive recyclers who are certified members of the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), Manassas, Va., Gold Seal Program and who continue to meet and exceed the expectations of their customers.

"Certified Gold Seal members are business people who have made an extraordinary commitment to their business," Ken Weiss, president of RealParts.com, Warren, R.I., says. "They have service levels and high standards to which they adhere. They are quality recyclers that repairers can count on."

The Gold Seal certification gives automotive recyclers the ability to tell their customers they are a part of an elite group. The certification tells their customer they have environmentally clean, up-to-date, professional facilities and stand behind the deliveries, warranties and business practices that ensure their customers get top-notch service and high-quality parts.

Gold Seal-certified automotive recyclers know the qualities vital to satisfying repairers include performing high-quality repair service, improving efficiency for optimum cycle time and reducing costs—all also important to the repairer’s primary customers.

In addition, parts availability for the repairer may be a growing issue, considering the sweeping changes in the automotive industry and the disruptions in many of the parts supply chains. Repairers may need to seek out other sources for their needed OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts to avoid costly downtime and to maintain their ability to fix the cars.

BEST IN CLASS

For repairers seeking to use proven, high-quality product that is distributed in a timely fashion by recyclers they can trust to be consistent, ARA Gold Seal-certified members are on task. They want to be the repair industry’s preferred parts vendors and the repairer’s first choice when it comes to purchasing high-quality recycled OEM parts.

"Every repairer’s desire is to deal with best-in-class vendors," says Shannon Nordstrom of Garretson, S.D.-based Nordstrom’s Automotive Inc., chairman of the ARA Certified Automotive Recycler (CAR) Program. "Gold Seal sets the guidelines to assure a collision shop or a service shop that they are dealing with best-in-class automotive recyclers."

When the repair industry looks at its vendors, it probably looks at automotive recyclers as just parts suppliers. Eric Schulz, co-owner of Minnesota-based AAA Auto Salvage Inc. and Gold Seal committee chairman, says, "Yes, I am a parts supplier, but I’m also selling service; I’m selling problem-solving aspects of delivering a product to them that can help with critical cycle times; I’m selling my ability to accurately describe the part; and I’m selling the ability to save money, which keeps their customers’ cars in their shops. That’s really where an auto recycler comes into play." He adds. "The repairers need the part to show up on time and in the condition they expect. That expectation is met when they deal with a Gold Seal certified recycler. No surprises on delivery. The expectations of accuracy are what drives the Gold Seal Program and what drives the Gold Seal members to better serve their customers."

"I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year speaking with individual shop owners, multi-store operators and consolidators, and the insurance companies are pushing them to use recycled parts," Weiss says. "They are happy to use recycled parts, they just want to know they are dealing with vendors that they can count on. Gold Seal is a head start, pointing them in the right direction."

SEAL OF APPROVAL

Focusing on the wholesale industry with the collision shops, mechanical shops and insurance companies, the Gold Seal Program, established in 1997, specifically addresses customer service based on professional and ethical business practices. The Gold Seal Program is designed to help maintain and enforce reputable quality business practices among its members. Its standards are designed to address and ensure excellent customer satisfaction through the description and grading of all parts using uniform ARA damage codes and grading system, reliable on-time scheduling and delivery, written warranties that rival or are better than new and after-market parts and a customer complaint process.

"I whole-heartedly support that kind of certification process," Darrell Amberson says. Amberson is the president of Bloomington, Minn.-based Lehman’s Garage, chairman of the International Automotive Congress and Exposition (NACE) and collision division director of the Automotive Service Association (ASA), the largest trade association of its kind that represents the collision industry, which also supports ARA’s Gold Seal Program."I think we as repairers need to seek out that kind of entity more and more that would be certified. There are so many obvious benefits of utilizing a certified salvage organization. Too many times the insurers want us to shop the parts, and I think the salvage industry has more expertise to shop for us. If you can work with a high caliber salvage yard that can do that for you there’s a lot of efficiency there. You have a much higher level of confidence that you are going to get a good quality part—their processes are better.

"Also there’s some pressure to be green," Amberson adds. "Those pressures and influences will probably increase in the years to come. That means we need a salvage industry that performs better and more consistently, provides good quality parts, doesn’t miss their promised delivery time and does an accurate job of projecting the condition of the part."

Gold Seal recyclers follow inventory standards and multi-point inspection standards to deliver consistent product so that outputs from facilities across the nation are similar no matter which Gold Seal recycler is chosen. "CAR and Gold Seal recyclers are continually following standards and improving those standards to match and exceed that level of sophistication to assure repairers that Gold Seal recyclers are best in class," Nordstrom says. "Gold Seal members create a culture of accountability."

SERVICE IS KEY

A key performance measurement of the Gold Seal Program participants is quarterly Customer Service Index (CSI) surveys. CSIs are randomly sent to the Gold Seal members’ customers, allowing those customers the opportunity to appraise their dealings with the business and requiring Gold Seal members to uphold a minimum composite score. The customer is asked to rate services, such as overall satisfaction with the Gold Seal member, delivery time, cleanliness and accuracy of the description of the parts and in filling orders for the company, to name only a few. To provide this service, ARA partnered with Customer Research Inc., based in Seahurst, Wash.

"One of the most important things about the Gold Seal Program," Weiss says, "is [participating in] customer service indexing. In order to be a Gold Seal member, you must put your past performance out on the line to customers, the customers being the repairers, for comment. And the body shops certainly appreciate that because they are asked to be responsible for their own customer satisfaction indexing by their insurance customers or insurance partners. A poor experience with a recycler can hurt the body shop’s performance. So in order for them to maintain their cycle time and their customers’ satisfaction, they’re best by dealing with quality recyclers."

Schulz says "Through the CSI program, we are able to track and maintain our customer service levels so that when you order a part from a Gold Seal auto recycler, there are no surprises on delivery. You know what you are going to get before it gets there.

"Also part of the Gold Seal Program is participating in the ARA Customer Complaint Hotline," he continues. "If a customer has a problem or an issue with a part that they can’t resolve with the recycler, this hotline is an outlet for the customer to be able to file a formal complaint with ARA about that situation. The Gold Seal Committee then visits the issue and assists to find a solution. The Customer Complaint Hotline number, (888) 385-1005, is displayed on the invoices and parts tags of every Gold Seal member. It is available on the Gold Seal Web page of the ARA Web site (www.a-r-a.org). There is also a customer complaint form on the ARA Web site."

At the foundation of the Gold Seal Program is the CAR Program. Created in 1994, the program is geared toward general business practices, facility safety issues, licensing and regulatory requirements and environmental standards that keep the industry in the mainstream green movement and provides guidance for member facilities in adhering to these standards. After members complete the application process and become CAR certified, they are audited annually. The audit is conducted by an environmental professional the first year, then the facilities are eligible to conduct self-audits every other year with an environmental professional completing the alternate years.

Gold Seal certification is awarded to those who meet the CAR program standards, complete the Gold Seal program’s requirements and agree to maintain the professional business practices, rules and regulations of the Gold Seal Program.

ARA Gold Seal members know that the professional automotive and collision repair industries are their primary customers. To better understand them, ARA has participated in inter-industry trade conferences. Also, ARA executive officers sit on inter-industry committees with such collision and mechanical repair industry organizations as ASA, the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) and the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA). Over the years, ARA has been listening and evolving, and the automotive recycling industry has become more sophisticated, learning what the professional repair facility needs.

SELF CONTROL

Amberson likes the idea of the salvage industry doing more to monitor itself, differentiating the more competent recyclers from the others. "The CAR and Gold Seal programs are tools to continue to improve. There’s some frustration in the repair industry with the performance in the salvage industry," he says. "The insurers put more pressure on us to use salvage parts. In many cases, we want to use more salvage parts to keep cost effective and minimize the number of total losses. Many of us would like to see something indicated that the yard with the part is Gold Seal certified. I am going to have a higher level of confidence in a Gold Seal facility than anyone else."

To enable collision repair and mechanical service facilities to more easily find Gold Seal members, ARA actively works with data management programs, including APU Solutions, Pinnacle, RealParts.com and Car-Part.com, to tag Gold Seal members with the use of the Gold Seal logo or a Gold Seal icon. In additiion to looking for the Gold Seal designation in their data management systems, repairers can locate Gold Seal members by searching the membership directory on the ARA Web site and querying for Gold Seal recyclers.

ARA Gold Seal-certified members are on the leading edge of their industry and are committed to delivering best-in-class parts and excellent service. These certified recyclers set the bar high for the rest of the automotive recycling industry, assuring their collision repair/mechanical service industry customers that they are committed to the highest standards of operation.

"The Gold Seal Program is all about wowing the customer with service and making sure that we can help them make the repair process seamless for their customer," Schulz says.

D. L. Foor is a Cape Coral, Fla.-based freelance writer and frequent contributor to ARA’s Automotive Recycling magazine. This article was submitted on behalf of ARA.